The roar of engines cut through the pre-dawn darkness like mechanical thunder, accompanied by the wild howls of men riding toward violence and opportunity.
"Fucking finally!" bellowed the rider in front, a mountain of muscle covered in crude tattoos that glowed faintly with mana enhancement. "Been stuck doing collection runs for three months. Time to crack some skulls and level up!"
His two companions whooped in agreement, their desert bikes kicking up plumes of dust as they tore through the ruined streets at speeds that would have been suicidal for baseline humans.
"Boss says we get first pick of the cores," the second rider shouted over the engine noise, his scarred face split by a manic grin. "Long as we secure the perimeter before the other gangs show up. Anyone not Rust Kings gets a warning shot, then a kill shot!"
"What about independents?" asked the third, younger than his companions but radiating the same casual violence.
"What about them?" The lead rider laughed. "F Rank dipshits trying to play hero? Natural selection, brother. Darwin would be proud!"
All three were peak F-Rank awakened—level 9 or 10, judging by the casual confidence they radiated. Their auras carried the distinctive pressure of violence-hardened fighters who'd survived in the ruins by being meaner and faster than their competition.
They hit the narrow pass between two collapsed buildings doing at least one hundred and sixty kilometers per hour, engines screaming as they navigated the treacherous terrain with the enhanced reflexes of their rank.
Right into Zeph's carefully prepared kill zone.
-----
Zeph stood in the shadows of a ruined parking structure, his enhanced hearing tracking the approaching bikes with perfect clarity. His hands gripped a length of reinforced cable, muscles tensed and ready.
'Predictable,' he thought with cold satisfaction. 'Gang members always take the fastest route, and this is one of the few paths through this sector that doesn't require climbing or serious detours.'
Twenty minutes of preparation using his enhanced strength had transformed this chokepoint into a death trap worthy of his gaming experience.
The True Might rune made digging and moving debris almost trivially easy—tasks that would have taken hours at his old strength took mere minutes now.
Pitfall covered with loose rubble and camouflage netting. Support structures weakened and ready to collapse. Counterweights positioned to trigger secondary traps. And the pièce de résistance: a net woven from scavenged steel cable, suspended above the kill zone and ready to drop.
'Three targets, peak F-Rank, probably enhanced reflexes and some combat skills,' he calculated, watching their approach through his tactical glasses. 'But reflexes don't help when the ground disappears beneath you.'
The lead bike crossed the threshold he'd marked with a subtle chalk line.
Zeph yanked the cable with Force-enhanced strength.
The effect was catastrophic and beautiful in its mechanical precision.
Rumble!
The road surface collapsed inward as supporting debris gave way, sending all three bikes tumbling into a two-meter pit lined with sharp rubble.
The riders, enhanced reflexes or not, had no time to react as their vehicles became metal coffins dragging them down.
Before they could recover, Zeph triggered the second stage.
Weakened support columns gave way with a grinding roar, dropping tons of carefully positioned concrete into the pit. Not enough to bury them completely, but enough to pin bikes and legs and turn an attempted escape into an impossibility.
Rustle! Swish!
The steel cable net followed, weighted with debris and dropping with perfect timing to entangle the struggling gang members. Their enhanced strength let them tear through ordinary rope, but steel cable designed to support bridge sections was another matter entirely.
Thirty seconds after hitting Zeph's kill zone, all three riders hung upside down in the net, suspended above the rubble-filled pit like caught fish. Blood ran from multiple impact injuries, and at least one was missing teeth from a collision with his handlebars.
"What the fuck!" the lead rider screamed, struggling against bonds that cut into his skin with every movement. "Who the fuck—"
Zeph activated Force and dropped into the pit like a ghost manifesting from shadows.
Puchi! Puchi! Puchi!
His enhanced speed and strength made the execution brutally efficient. Phantom swept through the first rider's exposed neck before the man could finish his curse. The second died trying to activate some kind of defensive skill, the glow barely forming before steel separated flesh.
The youngest tried to beg, but Zeph's blade was already moving. Three kills in under five seconds, delivered with the cold precision of someone who'd long since abandoned mercy as a viable survival strategy.
[Level 9 Awakened Defeated x3]
[+150 EXP]
[LEVEL UP! Level 1 → Level 2]
[+5 Attribute Points Available]
The notification chimed with satisfying finality as power surged through his system. Not the explosive transformation of awakening, but a steady enhancement that settled into his frame like warm potential.
He was now a Level 2 awakened!
'First blood in a system event,' he thought, already moving to loot the corpses. 'And a clean—'
The screeching cut through his thoughts like nails on a chalkboard.
Multiple sources, coming from the southeast. His enhanced hearing picked up the distinctive sounds of small bodies moving with inhuman coordination, accompanied by high-pitched chittering that set his teeth on edge.
Arrows whistled through the air from multiple angles.
Zeph threw himself flat as projectiles punched into the pit walls around him, crude but numerous enough to be deadly through volume alone. His tactical glasses highlighted the trajectory sources—at least a dozen archers positioned in the ruins around his position.
'Monsters,' he realized, abandoning any thought of thorough looting. 'The weakest ones are already spreading from the portal.'
He grabbed the bike in the best condition—the youngest rider's vehicle, barely damaged in the fall—and hauled it out of the pit with Force-enhanced strength that made the two-hundred-kilo machine feel manageable.
The engine turned over on the second kick, roaring to life with a sound that immediately drew more screeching from the surrounding ruins. Zeph threw his leg over the seat, twisted the throttle, and prepared to blast out of the kill zone before whatever was hunting him could close the noose.
That's when his enhanced hearing picked up movement from every direction.
Behind him. To his left and right. Even from above, where something was scrambling across ruined walls with unnatural agility.
He was surrounded.
Zeph's tactical glasses highlighted the approaching threats, their heat signatures showing clearly against the cool pre-dawn air. Small bodies, maybe a meter tall, moving with coordinated precision that suggested intelligence rather than animal cunning.
The first one stepped into view from behind a collapsed wall, and Zeph felt his stomach drop.
Green skin. Pointed ears. Crude leather armor and a rusty short sword that looked like it had been scavenged from some medieval armory. Beady yellow eyes that gleamed with malicious intelligence as they locked onto him.
A goblin.
Not the cute, cartoonish creatures from children's stories, but the genuine article—small, vicious, and apparently smart enough to set up an ambush of their own.
And judging by the dozens of similar heat signatures his glasses were detecting, this one wasn't alone.
'Well, shit.'